


Song Fic(tion)

by PorcupineGirl



Category: Supernatural
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, I'm Sorry, Love Confessions, M/M, Mark of Cain, Post-Episode: s10e09 The Things We Left Behind, Song Lyrics, Songfic, not actually a songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-11
Updated: 2015-01-11
Packaged: 2018-03-07 01:40:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3156188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PorcupineGirl/pseuds/PorcupineGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Claire has pulled a runner (again), they're left with eight slashed tires, and Dean and Cas are at each other's throats.</p><p>Which is how Dean winds up trapped in the backseat of Charlie's yellow Volkswagen, listening to her frankly appalling music collection. And if the lyrics to some of the songs are hitting a little too close to home for him, at least he's sure that he's not the only one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Song Fic(tion)

**Author's Note:**

> In which I realize that both Jensen and Felicia were in high school at the same time as me, so I give Charlie and Sam my taste in music. But not Dean. Definitely not Dean.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

Dean is so pissed he nearly kicks poor Baby’s wheels, but that would just be adding insult to injury. But he needs to kick _something_ , so he finally goes over and kicks the wall of the garage, thankful that his boots are steel-toed.

His poor, beautiful Baby is sitting there sadly, wearing four slashed tires.

Cas’s crappy car is in a similar state.

They’re missing one unruly teenager.

It isn’t hard to add two plus two here.

“ _CAS!”_ he roars as he runs up the stairs, “When we find your fucking daughter I’m—“ he stops so suddenly he trips on a stair, realizing that _I’m gonna kill her_ is really the last thing he needs to be saying about anyone, let alone Claire, right now. “She’s in big fucking trouble!”

He bursts through the door to the bunker, trying to rein in his fury before Cas and Sam decide the Mark is fueling him. Because it isn’t, it truly isn’t—this is just pure indignant rage at that little punk disrespecting his Baby.

Cas comes in from the wing that he’d been searching, frowning. “I take it she’s not in the garage? And she’s not my daughter, Dean.”

“Well she’s got your baby blues, your credit card, and you’re the one who sprung her from juvy; as far as I’m concerned, she’s yours. How the hell did she get away, anyhow? You don’t sleep, Cas, didn’t you see her? What the hell were you doing?” Dean is crowding into Cas’s space now, not that that has any chance of intimidating or even bothering the angel.

Castiel glares. True to form, he does not back down and in fact pushes in closer to Dean as he growls, “What do you think I was doing? I was back in one of the archives all night, Dean—looking for a way to save _you_. If we’re lucky, she hasn’t gotten anyone to pick her up yet and we can just go out and get her off the side of the road—“

Dean resists the urge to shove Cas away, or throttle him, or—or—“Oh yeah, by the way, we’ve got no way to go after her right now, because _she slashed the tires on both our cars_.”

“All of them?” Sam asks as he comes in from another wing—he startles when he finds Dean and Cas shouting right into each other’s faces.

“Yes, all of them!” Dean finally breaks away and turns toward his brother. “And none of the other cars down there have gas in ‘em right now, at least not enough to get us out of this god-forsaken corn field and to the nearest gas station. Most of ‘em, the insides are rusted out enough they don’t run anyhow—I started to restore a couple when we first got here, but I haven’t exactly had time for that in the past, like, lifetime.”

“Right,” Sam says, passing a hand over his face, “Is there even one that runs? We could siphon some gas out of you guys’ cars—“

He’s interrupted by Dean’s phone, which Dean digs out of his pocket. _She better be calling to have daddy come pick her up,_ he thinks, but when he looks at the phone he does a double take. He answers.

“Charlie? Where the hell are you?”

“Well, hello to you too, Dean. Yes, I missed you, too, yes, Oz was lovely. Oh, guess what I learned today?”

Dean blinks. “What?”

“Apparently the portal out of Oz doesn’t go out the way it comes in. Otherwise I’d be in the bunker right now. Which I’m not. In case you’re not there or for some reason haven’t noticed my lack of presence.”

Sam is frantically motioning for Dean to let him hear, while Cas just stares at him with that tilty-head-squinty-eye thing he does. Which Dean is really far too pissed off to find adorable at the moment, he really, really is. Dean takes the phone from his ear and hits the speaker button.

“Hey, Charlie!” Sam says.

“Sam, hi!” Charlie chirps.

Dean interrupts before they get off on some small-talk tangent. “Okay, but we’re back to my original question, where the hell are you?”

“Well, the good news is, I’m in Kansas. The bad news is, I’m in Dodge City, about 2.3 million miles from Lebanon.”

“Kansas is not that big,” Cas says, frowning and shaking his head at Dean.

“Who’s that?” Charlie asks eagerly. “Wait, oh my God, is that Castiel? Low, rumbly voice, took me way too literally? Hi! I’m Charlie! I can’t wait to meet you!”

“I—can’t wait to meet you, too,” Cas says hesitantly. He looks at Dean in confusion. Dean knows he’s too preoccupied with wanting to find Claire, on top of everything else that’s been happening ( _on top of possibly needing to kill you_ ) to process this abrupt change of topic.

“Anywhoodle, I’m getting the hell out of Dodge ASAP.” She lowers her voice. “Don’t tell the locals I said this, but it smells like cow poo.”

“What does?” asks Sam.

“The entire city. Literally. Stock yards everywhere, the whole place smells like cow poo. So anyway, I just bought a cheapass car and I’m on my way to you guys, is that cool? Are you in the bunker?”

“Yes!” Dean exclaims, looking at the other two with wide eyes. “When will you be here?”

“Aw, it’s not actually as bad as I said, it should only be like four hours.”

“Great. Once you’re here, can we use your car?”

‘Um, I suppose so? What’s going on?”

Dean sighs. “It’s complicated. We’ll explain in person. I’m glad to hear from you, Charlie. And _not_ just because of the convenient car, I promise.”

“Okay, I’ll let you know when I’m getting close. Later, bitches!”

“Ha!” Dean shouts after he hangs up the phone, “For once in our sad little lives, we catch a break. I mean, we wouldn’t need a break if your lunatic of a daughter hadn’t slashed my Baby’s tires—or better yet, could have stayed put for _one freaking night_ —“

“She’s a traumatized child, Dean,” Castiel breaks in, anger simmering dangerously beneath his deceptively calm words, “Don’t make me remind you how she got that way.”

Dean opens his mouth to fling back some remark about how it probably had something to do with Castiel kidnapping and killing her real father, but before he can, his mind flashes back to being in that room, with the men he’d killed—hell, it’d traumatized all of them.

“Right,” he finally says, chastened, “And now she’ll be a traumatized child with four more hours of lead time on us. Any ideas on finding her?”

“She’s got your credit card, right?” Sam says, motioning to Cas, “Any charges she makes should go up on their website pretty quickly. I’m sure she’ll buy a train or bus ticket or something.”

“Won’t a website require some kind of password?” Cas asks. “That card isn’t really mine, I don’t have the password.”

Sam and Dean look at each other, grinning.

“Yeah, I don’t think that’ll be a problem,” Dean says.

—

“So, just to be clear, you want me to hack into the web account of a stolen credit card that has been _re_ -stolen by a minor you sprung from juvy,” Charlie says, sitting in front of her laptop four hours later.

“Uh, yep, that about sums it up,” Sam says, giving her his best _please forgive us for asking you to break more federal laws for us_ smile.

“Why’d you wait for me to get here? What, you couldn’t get the local kindergarten class to come do it for you?” Charlie gives them a look that makes Dean wonder if she honestly believes they should have been able to do this themselves. “Gimme five minutes, boys. And… angels? Are you a boy? Do angels have gender? Sorry, that’s probably a little too intrusive for ten minutes into our friendship.”

Castiel looks startled. “I think you’re the first human to ever ask me that. No, we don’t. But I’ve been in this vessel long enough, including actually living as a human male, that I tend to think of myself as male now. Very few angels ever spend enough time on earth, in one vessel, for the idea of gender to make any real sense to them.” 

Dean blinks at him. He’s a little thrown by the idea that when they had first met, Cas didn’t think of himself as a man. Because Dean certainly had. He was in a man’s body, what else was Dean supposed to think of him as? Dean forces himself to look back down at the computer screen, and he is _definitely not_ wondering whether this means that angels in general, and Cas in particular, are also lacking a specific sexual orientation. The idea that Cas is _de facto_ a straight male has definitely not been a key part of his strategy to repress any…thing. Anything at all.

“Great. Then give me five minutes, boys.” Charlie grins and cracks her knuckles.

Four minutes and fifteen seconds later, they hear a triumphant “Aha!” from behind the laptop.

“Let’s see… Yep, sure enough, she bought a Greyhound ticket this morning,” Charlie reports.

They crowd around her, and Dean squints at the screen. “It doesn’t say where it’s to.”

Charlie gives him a funny look. “Of course it doesn’t, this isn’t the ticket, just the credit card statement. Have you ever actually looked at your credit card statement?”

“I’ve never used a credit card legally, no I haven’t looked at the freaking _statements_ ,” Dean says, giving her the same look right back.

“Greyhound must keep a database where the credit card is linked to the ticket info,” Sam breaks in, “Can we get into that?”

Charlie turns back to the computer, wiggling like an excited puppy; Dean can’t help but smile a little at how excited she is to do her thing. He realizes she probably didn’t get to do much hacking in Oz.

“No problemo. Give me ten minutes this time, maybe fifteen. Any chance we could order a pizza? There’s no pizza in Oz, _God_ I miss pizza so much. I am in dire need of pepperoni.”

“Sure, but they don’t exactly deliver out here,” Dean tells her, leaning on the table by her computer, “We’ll have to take your car to pick it up.”

Without taking her eyes from the screen, Charlie pulls a key out of the pocket of her hoodie and slaps it into Dean’s hand.

Once the pizza has been ordered, Dean steps out of the bunker and spots Charlie’s car. He then steps back into the bunker.

“I’m not driving that. I’ll ride in it later ‘cause I have no other choice, but I’m not drivin’ it.” He tosses the key to Sam, who is giving him a quizzical look.

“Shut up, she’s adorable!” Charlie flashes him a glare. “I’ve always wanted a New Beetle, and the dent on her back fender meant I could actually afford her with the cash I managed to scrounge up. I got very attached on the drive here, so _be nice_.”

Sam rolls his eyes. “I’ll go get the pizza.” As he brushes past Dean on the stairs, he adds, “Some of us are secure enough in our manhood to drive an adorable car for twenty minutes.”

“I’ll secure your manhood,” Dean grumbles to himself as he trudges down the rest of the steps—before realizing that that… doesn’t sound like he meant it to. He stops and runs a hand over his face, grimacing. At least he’d said it quietly enough that Charlie and Cas couldn’t hear, so he won’t get additional shit.

Cas, of course, is staring at him, looking some mix of angry and frightened and confused. As Dean crosses the room, he tries to remind himself that Cas is at least as stressed-out as he is, and them sniping at each other isn’t going to get them anywhere. Yes, he’s been annoyed for weeks that Cas bailed immediately after de-demonizing him. And further annoyed that he didn’t bother to contact Dean even once until this little brat decided to go AWOL the first time. And now said brat is making Dean’s life, which was already pretty much down the shitter, even more difficult. But it’s Cas, and he’s always dealt with shit in his own weird angelic way. And if things are really going the way Dean thinks they’re going, he doesn’t want to spend his last days (Weeks? Dean doesn’t think months) fighting with his best friend.

So he pushes down the gruff “What are you looking at?” that tries to come out as he approaches, and instead waits until he’s right up next to Cas (right up in his nonexistent personal space, Jesus, when did that habit rub off on Dean?) to say a quiet, “What’s up?”

Cas holds his gaze for a moment before shaking his head and shrugging. “What’s not, at this point?”

That makes Dean smile a little. “Fair enough. Well, let’s see—heaven’s not after you right now, right? That’s something. No pending apocalypses, that I’m aware of, at least. This shit’s small potatoes.”

Cas rolls his eyes. “I suppose you have a point.”

But it doesn’t change the pained look in his eyes as he stares again at Dean. Dean swallows. They’re standing too close, having too hushed and intimate a conversation, the kind where all the important things are what’s not being said, and all Dean wants to do is put his head on Cas’s shoulder and wrap his arms around him and hold him until that look goes away. _If we were chicks I could do that and no one would think it was gay, no one would think there was anything else going on_. The thought doesn’t help, because there _is_ something else going on, and he feels its pull now as strongly as ever. He closes his eyes just to get away from that blue gaze, ducks his head, rubs a hand over his face, but he can still feel it on him.

Finally, Dean steps back, cleanly severing the whatever-it-is (but not severing it at all, he knows, just taking some of the heat off it), and then heads into the kitchen.

“You want something to drink, Charlie?”

—

The pizza has been eaten, and they are ready to go track down the stupid teenager before she says the wrong thing to the wrong person and makes Dean’s life even more complicated. The four of them exit the bunker and head toward the car. He, Sam, and Cas are all carrying giant books from a chest Cas found in the archive last night, so they can keep looking for something, _anything_ that might help with the Mark of Cain while they’re gone.

“There is no way I’m fitting in the backseat,” Sam says, shaking his head, “Definitely shotgun.”

Dean has to admit he’s right, so he and Cas pile into the back of the bright yellow monstrosity. What is it with Charlie and yellow cars, anyhow? Where the hell does she even _find_ them? At least her last car didn’t look like a plastic Happy Meal toy.

Finally, they’re on the road, headed to Des Moines. Why Claire bought a ticket to Des Moines and not all the way back to Pontiac, none of them knows. She probably has relatives there—hopefully she’ll be too busy crafting and keeping up her own lies to say anything about Dean. She’d been skittish around him for the past two days, and he couldn’t really blame her. Even if he is sure (pretty sure) that it only happened because look, those were _bad guys_ and yeah he kinda _wanted_ to kill them for what they had done to her. He doesn’t want to kill her, obviously, or any of his friends, so nothing’s going to happen. Nothing. Unless somebody threatens the people he cares about again, maybe.

God, he hopes that’s true.

Charlie hands her phone to Sam and tells him how to hook it up to the car’s sound system.

“I loaded up my favorite ‘90s playlist before I went to Oz,” she chirps, “This should take you back to high school, Dean.”

Dean scoffs loudly, but Sam is the one to answer her. “Yeah, Dean wasn’t exactly listening to the Top 40 even then.”

Charlie stretches her neck up a bit to give Dean a strange look in the rearview mirror. “Who said anything about Top 40? Didn’t you listen to college stations? Everyone listened to college stations in 1995. Well, everyone cool. Well, okay, everyone _I_ considered to be cool, which, on a Venn diagram, probably does not intersect the circle of actual cool people. But you can’t tell me you weren’t at least listening to Nirvana or Pearl Jam, come on! The mainstream grunge stuff was, like, unavoidable.”

“Yeah, no.” Dean shakes his head, looking at the back of Charlie’s head incredulously. “Real rock was long gone by then.”

“Oh, for the love of Cobain, you still wear the flannel and combat boots! Anyhow, too bad,” she says, reaching down to fiddle with the phone, “My car, my tunes.”

“They’re work boots, not combat boots,” Dean mutters, but it’s suddenly drowned out by a low, insistent guitar riff—well, not what Dean would think of as a riff, but he doesn’t know what else to call it. He kind of has to admit that it’s not entirely bad, though. He really hadn’t listened to the radio in high school except for classic rock stations, sticking mostly to his trusted tapes that would never slip in a James Taylor song when he wasn’t expecting it. He’d heard the “alternative” crap being played in grocery stores or on TV shows or whatever, but he hadn’t paid any attention to it. 

He has to admit that this song is at least trying to be real rock, if not quite getting there. The singer’s voice is low and gravelly, the polar opposite of everything Dean holds sacred, but the angry guitar and driving beat aren’t bad, and he finds himself nodding his head despite himself. But then he tries to listen to the lyrics. He gives it another verse before he finally can’t deal.

“I’m sorry, what the _fuck_ is this song about?” He shouts to be heard over the music. “Did he just say the _eyes of disarray_? There’s a mask and a dog—the fuck? ”

Charlie pauses the song. “Okay. I will admit that lyrics made absolutely no sense in the 90s. You know the whole genre was a reaction against hair rock, so they went from lyrics that are straight-up about sex and partying to… Well, ridiculously dense metaphors, pretty much. For the most part.  Just… apply your own metaphors. Find your own meaning, okay? Think of it as a car game! And stop whining.”

Sam, by this point, has gone from holding in snickers to flat-out laughing his ass off.

“You too, tall one,” Charlie says with a glare.

“No, no, I love the music,” Sam says, trying to calm down, “I’m mostly laughing at Dean, but your explanation was priceless and just… This is going to be an interesting ride.”

The music blasts back on, and Dean rolls his eyes toward the window. Cas, of course, has been quiet through the whole conversation, and Dean vaguely wonders what his musical tastes are. Probably classical—no, probably some obscure genre that hasn’t existed in millennia.

He listens to the lyrics again, and grudgingly admits to himself that he can kind of eke out a storyline of sorts if he squints real hard. Sort of. Seems like more work than it’s worth, though.

Focusing on the book in his lap, Dean sits through a few more songs like that—decent guitar and drums, weird nonsense lyrics, singer who’s either growling or shouting (rendering half the lyrics unintelligible anyhow). Charlie sings along with all of them—how does she even remember lyrics like these?—and then he realizes that Sam is singing along with half of them, too. Given that Sam spent most of the ‘90s in the same car as Dean, Dean has no idea how he knows so much of this music.

A slower song comes on. _Her legs spread out before me_ —okay, great, straight-up about sex, this Dean gets.

But no. The lyrics take a major turn downward from there, and Dean realizes this is a breakup song, not a sex song. Still, more straightforward than anything else they’d heard so far.

_And now my bitter hands_  
 _Chafe beneath the clouds_  
 _Of what was everything_  
 _Oh the pictures have_  
 _All been washed in black_

Out of nowhere, Dean feels his heart wrenching. He tells himself it’s just because things being washed in black is kind of a touchy subject for him these days. He can’t even listen to _Paint it Black_ anymore. Never mind that the feeling started before the song made it to that line.

The next verse is pretty innocuous… Until it gets to lyrics about _twisted thoughts that spin round my head_ and bitter hands cradling _broken glass of what was everything_. This shit is hitting too close to home. Dean flashes back to that room—two days ago, that was only two days ago—and the feeling of his world crashing down around him as he realized what he’d done. _Dude, the song’s not about you, it’s about some guy whose girlfriend left him, that’s all._ But then Charlie’s voice interrupts: _Apply your own metaphors. Find your own meaning, okay?_ Great. Thanks.

It doesn’t stop, either. _All I am, all I’ll be_ —fuck. No. The black is not all—it’s not— _I know someday you’ll have a beautiful life_ —at first he thinks of Sammy but— _I know you’ll be a sun in somebody else’s sky_ —fuck, he can’t, he _just fucking can’t_ not think of Cas now, what the _ever-loving hell_. And while the singer falls apart asking why it can’t be his, Dean leans heavily on the car door, face in his hand, and absolutely does not fall apart asking the same question.

Thankfully, the lyrics stop after that, but the song continues, the singer wailing incoherently and inviting Dean to replay all the hardest-hitting lyrics in his head. He clenches his jaw, squeezes his eyes shut, tenses every muscle in his face before breathing out hard. _It’s a stupid song, Jesus christ_.

As it fades out, he manages to sound almost mostly not at all broken as he asks “Hey, uh, could you, like, never ever play that song again? Ever?”

“Aw, I love that song!” Charlie half-whines. But then—

“Oh, _shit_ ,” Sam says heavily, and Dean hopes to god he’s only thinking about the _turn my world to black_ parts of the lyrics and not the end there, which is honestly what’s currently pulling on Dean’s brain the hardest.

“Sorry, I should have—thought of that, I know that song, I knew—Sorry,” Sam babbles, and Charlie looks at him in confusion. They’d left out the whole Dean-slaughtering-people part of the Claire story for the moment. 

But Sam must give her some kind of significant look, because she reaches for the phone and gives it a tap. “Okay, then. That’s cool. _Black_ ’s pretty heavy. Let’s go for something a little more lighthearted.”

Something with a light, jangly guitar comes on, and it’s clearly not Dean’s speed but whatever, anything to clear his mind after that. Then a girl singing in the girliest voice possible, which is no surprise given the delicacy of the guitar intro, comes on. _No one hurt my fragile little mind right now_ —Dean rolls his eyes, mostly at himself, and smirks down at his book.

A second girly-girl harmonizes for the chorus. _Now there’s dust on my guitar, you fuck._ Dean can’t help it, he laughs. What the hell? _You paralyzed my mind, and for that you suck._ Charlie is singing along at the top of her lungs, pretending to aim the lyrics at Sam, and Sam is laughing, too.

“Yeah, deep metaphors there,” Dean throws out, poking Charlie on the shoulder.

“Well some songs were written in plain English, come on. Don’t worry, you want unintelligible, just wait’ll we get to the Tori.” Sam laughs again, and Dean wonders if he knows who Tori is. Dean’s not even sure if it’s a band name or if it’s someone so well-known he’s supposed to know their last name.

At any rate, weird song, but it certainly lightens the mood. Charlie goes back to singing along, and Dean doesn’t laugh as much at the rest of it but at least he’s smiling now. After another verse, he glances over at Cas. Cas is leaning back against the door, clearly listening to the song, looking somewhat confused but smiling.

He notices Dean looking at him and narrows his eyes, shaking his head. “Despite the lyrics that are clearly meant to startle the listener and provoke laughter or a similar response, her anger is real and palpable. It reminds me of some twelfth-century ballads.”

“I bet it does,” Dean says, his smile morphing into one that he knows full well is too soft and too affectionate, and if Charlie or Sam looked back right now he’d be screwed. But they’re too busy with the song, Sam singing along to the chorus now, too. He can look at Cas however he damn well pleases, because it’s not like he never has before, and if Cas hasn’t picked up on it by now then he won’t today, either.

Except that there’s something in Cas’s gaze, something in the way that his smile softens too, that makes Dean think that he has picked up on something. It’s certainly not the first time he’s felt this thing pass between them in a way that he knows has to be mutual, but today is one of the rare occasions that he just sits and lets it happen and enjoys it instead of breaking away before it gets too strong to resist. _You’ll be a sun in somebody else’s_ —Dean’s smile fades quickly, and he turns back to his book just in time to catch the lyric _I’m too plush for your pathetic digs_ , which snaps him back out of it and makes him snicker again. She does sound pretty pissed, though.

After that, the songs are back to nothing special for the next hour or so while they scour their ancient tomes and talk about what Charlie was up to in Oz.  (And the fact that, yes, she is planning to go back—she considers this a sort of vacation into the real world. She hopes to convince Dorothy to come with her next time.)

There’s a lull in the conversation when an acoustic guitar comes on, with something twangy in the background.

“Oh c’mon, this isn’t country, is it?” Dean asks, pulling a face.

“No! I went through a folkie phase, deal with it. And it’s appropriate, anyhow.” Charlie shoots him another look in the rearview mirror and turns up the volume.

Dean rolls his eyes and sits through a supremely boring first verse followed by a chorus that seems to just be the word _Iowa_ repeated over and over. Ah. That’s why it’s appropriate. Mystery solved.

Then the second verse starts, and despite himself Dean sort of likes the first two lines—just the words, the music is still going to put him to sleep.

_How I long to fall, just a little bit_  
 _To dance out of the lines and stray from the light_

He can maybe relate to that a little, sure. But the next lines make his stomach drop, out of nowhere:

_But I fear that to fall in love with you_  
 _Is to fall from a great and gruesome height._

Suddenly a totally different song breaks into his head—not one he’d normally listen to, but a cover of it just went by maybe fifteen minutes ago. _He was singing my life with his words…_ All at once, he knows how that lady felt. Dean knows a lot of love songs—hell most songs, even most _real_ rock songs, are love songs when it comes down to it. He’s never heard anyone put this exact feeling into exactly the right words until this stupid boring folk singer suddenly had to barge into the car. The rest of the verse isn’t terribly interesting, which leaves those lines playing on repeat in his head straight through the annoying, repetitive chorus.

He tunes in for the next verse, curious.

_Once I had everything_  
 _I gave it up_  
 _For the shoulder of your driveway and the words I’ve never felt_

Dean stops breathing for a few seconds. That’s—how did she? It’s way too close to things Cas has actually said (if less poetically) for Dean’s comfort. But the song keeps going.

_But for you, I came this far, across the tracks_  
 _Ten miles above the limit and with no seatbelt_  
 _And I’d do it again._

He takes a breath and glances over at Castiel. Cas is clearly listening, entranced. Technically, he’s staring at a spot on the seat next to him where he’s picking at the car’s upholstery, but Dean’s pretty sure he doesn’t see upholstery—his eyes are wide and blinking in surprise.

_For I woke up from a nightmare that I could not stand to see:_

Dean knows he should look away before he’s caught, but he’s so startled to see Cas as affected as he is that he doesn’t move.

_You were wandering out on the hills of Iowa_  
 _And you were not thinking of me._

As soon as the line ends, in the space of a blink Cas’s eyes shoot up to meet Dean’s. It’s so sudden that it startles a small gasp out of Dean. They hold each other’s gaze again as the singer warbles another inane chorus, but it’s a hundred and eighty degrees from the last time. Cas’s eyes are haunted, anguished, terrified. Dean is sure he looks spooked as well, but he has to wonder what Cas heard in those lyrics. 

Dean wants to soothe it away, whatever it is, wonders if he should say something. But as they sit, staring, the fear and hurt start to drain from Cas’s eyes, replaced by something like understanding, but maybe also surprise. Dean can’t interpret it, but it’s calmer and he no longer feels the panicky need to make Cas feel better. But he also has no desire to look away. Finally, the song ends, and they blink at each other for a few more seconds before Cas turns back to his book, a slightly confused look on his face. _Me, too, buddy; me too_ Dean thinks as he does the same. 

He’s really not sure what just happened there, just they both heard something in that song. He doesn’t know if it was the same thing, and judging by Cas’s expression he doesn’t think it was. But whatever it had made him think of had certainly involved Dean. Cas had looked up right on the heels of that line about the nightmare, a nightmare about the other person not thinking of the singer. But Cas can’t literally have nightmares, he doesn’t sleep—oh. Except when he did. And Dean kicked him out of the bunker. Shit, seriously? Had Cas actually dreamt about Dean after that, dreamt about Dean rejecting him? Ignoring him? Not caring about him? 

Dean closes his eyes (it’s not like he’s actually reading the page they’d been pointed at anyhow). Maybe they do need to talk. Maybe not about… Well, about what usually happens when they stare too long and smile too softly. Dean’s not sure he’ll ever be ready to talk about that. But maybe some kind of feelings-ish talk? _Before it’s too late_ , some traitorous part of his mind supplies, and that’s enough to have him shutting off this whole train of thought, turning the page of his book a little too forcefully.

Just when he thinks he might not be able to block it out, another song ends and the… the _thing_ that starts up next manages to distract him completely. At first he thinks maybe it’s just some kids’ song that made it onto the list by accident, but then—

“Charlie, please tell me we are not listening to a song that features a mother fucking _accordion_?” Dean’s not even angry, just very, _very_ confused.

To his utter shock, Sam is the one who answers.

“C’mon, Dean, this is a classic!”

Dean’s mouth tries several times, but can’t find a response. He rubs his face and tries again.

“Sammy. I don’t know what this song sounds like up in the front seat, but back here it is the exact opposite of _anything_ that could be considered _classic_. Tell me, Sam—in the front seat, did this song _not_ just contain the lyrics, ‘universe man, universe man, size of the entire universe man?’ Because that’s what it sounded like back here, so.. I’m sure you can understand my confusion.”

Charlie and Sam just laugh. And… and pretend that they enjoy the song, because they cannot enjoy it for real. Dean is positive.

“Yeah, TMBG are weird, just go with it,” Charlie says flippantly. “Have a little fun.”

“Do you have all of Flood on here?” Sam asks.

“Of course! Should we listen to it straight through?”

Sam eagerly grabs the phone and apparently queues up an entire album by this band. Dean is too shocked to even argue. He looks over at Cas for support, but Cas is absorbed in his book, apparently able to block out this noise.

And so Dean spends the next forty-five minutes listening to what seems to be a random string of words sung by someone with a stuffed-up nose while playing a selection of the worst “musical” instruments invented by man. _And Sam sings along to half the songs_. Finally, after about the third one, Dean can’t take it anymore.

“Sam, how the fuck do you know these songs?”

“Dude. I had this album on tape. Not that I ever got to listen to it, with you and dad around, but once I got to college I made up for it.”

“You had _what_?”

Sam turns around (as much as he can) to talk to Dean. “So, there was this cartoon I watched, Tiny Toons? And they played that Particle Man song on it, and this other one that’s on here, too. I was like, I dunno, seven or eight when I saw them? And I liked the songs so much that at some point I used dad’s little cassette recorder thing to tape them off the TV.” Dean squints. This might actually sound familiar?

“A few moves later, I dunno, a couple years or something, there was a kid whose house I went over to a couple times. I don’t even remember his name, Andrew maybe? I don’t even know what school or what city it was. But one time I brought my tape along and was like, hey, listen to these funny songs. And it turned out, his older brother had the whole album. He copied it onto some blank tapes for us.”

“Seven years old, okay, but you listened to this in _college_? You still like this crap? How can there be two adults in the same car who both listen to this?” Dean asks incredulously.

“Hey now,” Charlie breaks in, “Flood went platinum. And I’m a geek of a certain age, you can basically assume that I listen to TMBG by default.”

“Fine, whatever,” Dean sighs, and resigns himself to a full album of accordion music.

He occasionally looks over to Cas at particularly weird moments, like when the nasally guy sings about prosthetic foreheads, and their shared bafflement is soothing, papering over whatever had happened between them earlier.

 _Finally,_ a song comes on that is clearly not by this twisted band, and Dean never thought he’d be so relieved to hear generic alt-rock.

Another half an hour goes by, and he actually manages to focus on his (entirely useless so far, surprise surprise) book. Then a song starts that he does recognize, although he certainly wouldn’t say he _knows_ it.

“ _Rent_? Really? _Really_?” He doesn’t even bother to go for outrage, just settling on resignation.

Charlie is so startled she pauses the song. “Wait, you know _Rent_? Out of everything I’ve played, _this_ is what you recognize?”

“Yes, I know _Rent_. I listened to classic rock in the ‘90s, I didn’t _live_ under a rock.” Dean crosses his arms and frowns out the window. Of _course_ Charlie would notice that the only song he’s recognized is from a freaking musical. He doesn’t even know _how_ he knows it—just one of those pop culture osmosis things, like if she played _Smells Like Teen Spirit_ he’d recognize that, too.

“O…kay. Well. Yes, _Rent!_ Really.” And she hits play.

Dean tries to focus on his book, but the song is hard to ignore. Especially once he hears…

_I should tell you I should tell you_  
 _I should tell you I should -- no!_

Aw, crap. This definitely sounds like something he needs to tune out. What he wouldn’t do for his own pair of earbuds right now.

_Another time -- another place_  
 _Our temperature would climb_  
 _There'd be a long embrace_  
 _We'd do another dance_  
 _It'd be another play_

“Shit,” he mutters under his breath. Yes, this is exactly what he needs, a song about putting off telling someone how you feel about them, coupled with all the terrific things that might happen if you did. He rests his head in his hand, covering his eyes. Then a girl starts singing, because apparently this is a duet and that’s just lovely. Her lyrics start out pretty cheesy, and Dean thinks maybe he’s gonna get out of this after all, but then the music changes slightly.

_There's only us_  
 _There's only this_  
 _Forget regret_  
 _Or life is yours to miss_

“You gotta be kidding me,” he whispers. He reminds himself that this is a random dumb song on Charlie’s stupid phone, not a personal message for him.

At least the guy’s next verse includes the line _why do you need smack?_ , which amuses Dean to no end because what is more ‘90s than _smack_? The whole verse is pretty innocuous, in terms of things that are freaking Dean out today, and he’s relaxing and going back to his reading when the dude starts singing about what they’d do in another time, another place again. Dean shakes his head. He can ignore that. He really can.

And when the girl starts up again, he thinks he’s still okay. She’s still singing on the same basic themes and shit, and he’s getting a little fidgety, but again her lyrics are kinda cheesy so whatever. 

But then— 

_I can't control_  
 _(Control your temper)_  
 _My destiny_

That hits him out of left field, and he’s sitting there, dazed. Worse yet, this is clearly some kind of turning point in the song, where the music swells and the choir joins in and it all but jumps into Dean’s lap and yells “Listen to me!”

_I trust my soul_  
 _My only goal is just_  
 _To be_

And now he’s screwed. All he can do is sit there, dazed, while these two whiny fuckers assume the roles of the two internal voices that have been battling in his head forever. One urging him to _give in to love_ and the other shouting _just let me be_ , and god how cheesy _is_ this, but he’s under some kind of spell that won’t let him pull even a fraction of his attention away. He suddenly realizes that he’s rooting for the guy to win this argument, because in his head, the guy has won for years now and he really, really doesn’t think he’s ready for the day he loses.

But in the song, he does. His last cry of _another day_ is completely overwhelmed by the company’s final triumphant _no day but today_ , and all Dean can do is sit there like an idiot with his mouth hanging open. _That was not a sign, there’s no such thing as a sign and no god around to give them anyhow, that was a cheesy song from a bad musical._ Even so, he just sits there, stunned.

He finally risks a look at Cas, only to find blue eyes already watching him. Cas looks like Dean feels - like he’s had a punch to the gut. He even has one hand literally over his stomach, as if the song had a physical effect. They sit there for far too long, full minutes, just blinking at each other, feeling things _at_ each other in a bewildered sort of way—fear, hope, confusion—until Dean loses track of all the things that have passed between them. He just has the sinking feeling that if they weren’t both wearing seat belts, they might have done something really embarrassing by now.

The next song ends ( _that was either a really short song or we just sat here staring at each other for way, way, way too fucking long_ ), and Charlie pauses the music. Her voice thankfully startles both Dean and Cas out of their reverie.

“Hey, my bladder is a lot smaller than you manly men’s, so I’m gonna pull off at this next exit, k?”

There’s a vague chorus of “Yeah, great, sure, fine”s from the three of them, and before Dean knows what’s happening they’re pulling into a gas station and the car is stopping.

Charlie gets out, Sam says something about needing to stretch his legs and starts to get out, too, and Dean realizes he’s about to be trapped alone in a quiet back seat with Castiel for several minutes.

“Yeah, I gotta pee, too,” he manages to fumble out, and escapes.

Of course, that doesn’t take very long. And when he comes out of the bathroom, he sees Cas standing by the door of the gas station, waiting for him. He briefly considers looking for snacks or drinks to buy until Charlie comes out and they can exit together, but ultimately, he knows he needs to man the fuck up. Especially if Cas managed to pull it together enough to get out of the car and wait for him, the least he can do is meet him in the middle. With a sigh, Dean heads for the door.

“Dean,” Cas says as Dean comes out, as though their eyes aren’t already locked on each other, “We should talk.” He nods back toward the corner of the gas station, and Dean nods and follows him. At least Cas looks as uncomfortable as Dean feels, so that’s something. Dean reminds himself that there is a _lot_ of shit going on that Cas might want to talk about, so this may not even be That Dreaded Talk.

They go around the corner to the side of the building, where it’s reasonably secluded. Sort of. Dean leans a shoulder against the building. He crosses his arms, but then realizes how defensive that looks and shoves his hands in his jacket pockets instead. Cas turns around, looks at him for a moment, then mirrors his stance, though Cas does keep his arms crossed. He’s standing too close. Their faces are maybe a foot apart. But Dean barely has time to register that before he realizes that Cas’s face is no longer uncomfortable, but downright distraught. 

But before he can say anything, Cas blurts out, “I don’t want to kill you.” Okay. Good. Different talk then. “I don’t even know if I can, Dean. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve failed to kill you.” And how messed up are their lives that _that_ is a sentence that can pass between best friends and make perfect sense?

“I don’t want you to kill me, either, man! We’ll find something, some kind of cure or whatever, we _will_. But if we don’t… those times were different, Cas, and you know it. This would be— _for me_. If that’s really what it comes down to, you’ll be saving me, Cas.” He wants to reach out, to comfort, but he can’t and he knows how cowardly that is, but he can’t. 

“We don’t know how long we have to find that cure, Dean.” Cas’s arms finally uncross.

“Hey,” Dean says quietly, shrugging, “Nobody knows how long they have, right? Hit by a bus and all that crap.”

“We might—“ Cas lifts a hand hesitantly, and it touches Dean’s jacket, fiddles with the zipper nervously. Something breaks open inside Dean. “We might only have days left together.”

Dean watches Cas’s eyes for a few seconds, seeing an uncertainty that Dean isn’t actually sure he himself feels anymore. Dean puts his hand over Cas’s, looks down as their fingers slide together. A smile spreads across his face as he looks back up at Cas.

Then he’s laughing, leaning his forehead on the wall beside him, shaking his head.

“ _Shit_ ,” he breathes, looking back at Cas incredulously. “We’re doing this, aren’t we? This is happening.”

Cas tilts his head, watching Dean, the uncertainty fading. “Yes.”

“After all these fuckin’ years, we’re finally doing this at a gas station outside of Omaha, Nebraska. Because some stupid-ass song told us to.” And they’ve said it now, they’ve both actually acknowledged this, out in the open, and Dean’s heart is flowing out of his chest. Nothing short of a demon appearing next to them could wipe the smile from his face right now.

“If you’d rather—somewhere else—we could wait,” Cas stammers, but his eyes have already dropped to Dean’s mouth and Dean is already closing the distance between them, pressing their bodies together.

“No. This is perfect, Cas,” and he means it, “It’s perfect.”

And when their mouths come together a second later, it is. After a first short, _so_ sweet press of their lips, they immediately come back together, Cas’s arms wrapping around him as Dean’s hand runs up into that hair that feels as good as he’s imagined, their tongues sliding past each other as they immediately need to be as close as their many layers of clothing will allow. Castiel is a shockingly good kisser, but Dean’s not even sure he would notice if Cas weren’t—somehow, the little details and technicalities don’t even register if the kiss feels like a lungful of air when you didn’t even realize you were drowning.

Dean’s not even sure when it happened, but he suddenly realizes that Cas has him crowded back against the wall, and as Cas’s body presses in, trapping him, a small moan escapes him. Dean slides the hand that’s not tangled in Cas’s hair under that trenchcoat, around a smooth, muscular waist to draw his fingernails down Cas’s back, which pulls out a sound closer to a whimper than moan. Dean is just starting to vaguely wonder if maybe they should think about how far they shouldn’t take this in public when—

“ _Damn_! Guess you and me are sharing a motel room tonight, roomie!”

They both freeze at Charlie’s voice. As they pull back reluctantly, Dean can see her punch Sam on the arm out of the corner of his eye. Neither of them turns to face the interlopers, instead sagging against each other as Dean grimaces, his forehead resting on Cas’s.

“So. Uh. How long have you guys, uh…” Sam waves his hand around vaguely.

Dean finally turns his head just far enough to look reluctantly at his brother.

“I don’t know, like, a minute? Ish?”

Sam rolls his eyes. “Not, like, _right now_ , thanks. I mean like, in general, how long has this… whole thing”—more vague handwaving as he tries not to actually look at them—“been happening?”

Dean huffs out a laugh. “Yeah, like, _a minute_. Ish.”

“Oh.” Sam looks confused for a second. “ _Oh_. Shit. Sorry.” Charlie’s hand flies to her mouth as they both realize that they didn’t just interrupt some random makeout session.

Charlie waves her phone around. “Uh, GasBuddy says this is about as cheap as it’s gonna get, so I’m gonna go fill up. And buy a Coke.” She walks backwards a few steps. “And then just kinda hang out or whatever until you guys have had however much time you need. No rush.”

Sam opens his mouth to say something, pointing in the general direction of the car, but then closes it and just shakes his head and follows Charlie back to the front of the gas station.

As soon as they’re gone, Dean presses his lips back against Cas’s, but within seconds he’s laughing too hard to kiss. When he pulls back, Cas is smiling, too, looking at him with open affection. Dean revels in being looked at like that.

“Dean, I don’t want to alarm you, but I think your brother may have noticed that something’s changed between us.”

That absolute deadpan delivery, coupled with the sparkle in Cas’s eyes, has Dean pulling him close again, still laughing. One hand is still on Cas’s neck, and Dean brings the other one up to Cas’s face as his laughter fades.

“God, Cas.” Dean’s voice is rough with emotion, with the thrill of saying things he never thought he’d say. “I’ve loved you for so long, I’ve forgotten what it’s like to look at you and not be in love with you.”

Cas smiles, but Dean shakes his head. “I’m serious, man. Literally. My stupid brain is so crazy about you, it’s warped my memories—I swear, that first night? In that barn? When I imagine it, you bust in and that’s it, I’m in love, even if I’m also scared of you and pissed at you and whatever else. And I’m _pretty sure_ that’s not how it happened.”

Cas laughs, squeezing Dean’s waist. “Dean, you didn’t even _like_ me. For months, at least.”

“I don’t know, man. I don’t even know anymore.”

Cas tips his head forward, touching their foreheads again, and carefully runs his fingers over Dean’s lips as he speaks quietly. “When I touched you—touched your soul—something… _shifted_ inside me. I knew, with this sudden certainty, that our futures were entwined. And at the time I thought, of course. That’s why I’m here. To save you and then shepherd you through your destiny to aid heaven.”

“ _Shepherd_ me?” Dean laughs. “How’d that work out for you?”

“For me, incredibly well, it seems.” He smiles softly. “Eventually, at least. As of today. The first time we spoke about my doubts, about the idea that I might have any control over my own destiny, it became clear to me. That we would be tied together in a way that went far beyond the duty I’d been given. Even as we railed against the entire idea of fate, I knew that our fates would continue to intersect. Somehow. I didn’t understand. Love didn’t enter into it yet, you know I had no understanding of or capacity for human love. But over time, I learned. For me, you became the very definition of love, Dean.”

Dean thinks maybe breathing is overrated. “Definition. That’s a lot to live up to.”

“You wear it well.”

Cas leans in and they’re kissing again. It’s not as frantic as the first time, not as oh-god-we-can-finally-do-this. It’s slow, and deep, and hits something way down inside of Dean. But that depth and intensity soon shifts its focus, and by the time Cas moves his mouth away to kiss and mouth below Dean’s ear, under his jaw, Dean is already panting.

And his jeans are feeling a little tighter, which is not something he really needs. He nudges at Castiel’s shoulders.

“We gotta—we got shit to do today, remember?”

Cas sighs into his throat. “I’d rather not.”

Dean laughs, head tilted back against the gas station wall and completely unable to believe that he is living this moment right now.

“Charlie’s right, we’ll get a room all to ourselves tonight. We can do whatever we want.” He pitches his voice a little lower. “And trust me, I will.”

But instead of pulling back, Cas groans and buries himself in Dean’s neck again, this time nipping and licking his way across the skin, one hand fisted in Dean’s hair to keep his head tipped back for access. Dean makes a sound that’s far too aroused to be a yelp, but too surprised to be a moan, immediately melting into it.

“Fuck, _Cas_ ,” he breathes.

Cas moves his mouth up to Dean’s ear and whispers, soft so the air tingles across Dean’s skin, “Please.”

And if Dean wasn’t hard before, he certainly is now. For a moment, Dean’s hands tighten around him, clinging to that word. But then Dean comes to his senses, wriggling out of Cas’s grasp entirely.

“Oh, no, no,” he says, panting, “There are laws in this country about what you are and aren’t allowed to do out in broad daylight, and you keep pulling shit like that and I’m gonna have to start breakin’ ‘em. Anyhow, you’ve got that freaking trenchcoat to hide behind. I am not so lucky and right now, that’s gonna be a problem when I get back to the car.”

Castiel raises an eyebrow. “So you’re saying you’d like to borrow my coat?” Dean gives him a shove.

“Fuckin’ smartass.”

After a minute or two to let Dean’s little problem cool itself off (during which he has to literally hold Cas at arm’s length at one point, earning an eyeroll), they head back to the car, walking so close together it’s hard to even tell they’re holding hands.

Sam is already back in the front seat, poring over his book, but even though Charlie is clearly finished pumping gas she’s still standing there, leaning against the car. Her smile when she sees them is genuine, not the knowing smirk Dean was worried he’d have to face. As Cas climbs into the back behind her driver’s seat, she comes around to wrap Dean in a hug.

“Welcome out of the closet, kiddo,” she says softly in his ear.

Dean freezes. Somehow, with all the crazy weird tension that had been happening all day, he’d somehow forgotten that the entire reason he and Cas hadn’t done this years ago was that Cas _is a_ _guy_ and Dean is—or thought he was, or was trying to be—straight. Dean hadn’t really even thought of himself as _in_ any sort of closet.

“I’m not—I mean, I wasn’t—“ he looks at her, confused, then realizes. “Wow. I am, aren’t I?”

She rubs his arms affectionately. “Yeah, actually, ya kinda are. Don’t worry, life’s better out here, I promise. Look what it’s got you already!”

He kicks Sam out so he can climb into the backseat behind him, and within minutes they’re on the road again. After he’s got his seatbelt on, Dean looks over at Cas, and the completely unacceptable two feet of space between them.

He shrugs and mutters “Fuck it” as he unbuckles and slides into the middle seat, where he can nestle his head on Cas’s shoulder, ignoring Sam as he grins back at them.

As they pull onto the highway, Charlie hands Sam her phone. “Should we listen to Flood again?”

Dean sits up straight at that. “No way. You put on one more song from that freakshow of a band and me and Cas will spend the rest of the trip making out back here.”

“That’s not allowed!” Sam says in a slightly panicked voice, while Charlie just holds up a hand in peace and says “Okay, okay!”

She catches Dean’s eye in the rearview mirror and arches an eyebrow. “How about _Rent_?”

Dean gives her a look, suddenly wondering how random her playlist actually was, but he puts his hand on Cas’s knee and his head back on his shoulder and says, “I’ll allow it.”

He opens up the dusty book on his lap, a frustrating reminder of how far they have to go before anything remotely resembling happily ever after. Hell, right now he’s just hoping for happily ever next week.

But as he listens to the sounds of some nerd making a home movie of his roommate or something, he finds himself hoping a love song comes on soon.

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone recognized _all_ of these songs from the fic alone, let me know so I can love you. :)
> 
> Songs featured in this fic (in order of appearance):
> 
> [Plush](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXhmwMdUKfA) by Stone Temple Pilots  
> [Black](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cs-XZ_dN4Hc) by Pearl Jam  
> [You Suck](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SCYoNUk7G0) by The Murmurs  
> [Iowa](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqHgZhLLTc0) by Dar Williams  
> [Particle Man](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsAiCs66l40) by They Might Be Giants  
> [Another Day](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifknfWDYyp4) from Rent
> 
> This started out as an excuse to make Dean listen to _Iowa_ , and spiraled rapidly out of control. I'm so sorry.
> 
> P.S. If any readers are from Dodge City and are offended, I apologize. I have extended family there, and we drove across the state every summer to visit them growing up. In the '80s, at least, it did indeed smell like cow poo. Because of this, the smell of cow poo is now weirdly sentimental to me. If it no longer smells like that, sorry.
> 
>  
> 
> [My tumblr](http://porcupine-girl.tumblr.com)


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